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Q&A
Federal threats to social safety net programs and DSS response
0:40:46
ยท
4 min
Council Member Diana Ayala inquires about DSS's response to federal threats to social safety net programs. Commissioner Molly Wasow Park outlines the department's approach to addressing these concerns.
- DSS is taking a twofold approach: contingency planning and education campaign
- 1.8 million New Yorkers rely on SNAP, with a third being children and a third being older adults
- Every dollar of SNAP spent generates $1.54 of economic activity in NYC
- DSS is building a 'big tent coalition' to advocate for these programs, including anti-hunger, housing, education, and business organizations
Diana Ayala
0:40:46
Okay.
0:40:47
Okay.
0:40:48
I was thinking outside of the box.
0:40:52
I like it.
0:40:52
We're trying.
0:40:54
Yeah.
0:40:55
Okay.
0:40:56
So now I'll get to my questions.
0:40:59
The threat to so start to providers.
0:41:02
Providers have reported that a portion of their budgets come from federal sources that are now vulnerable due to the changes in political climate at the federal level.
0:41:09
These funds go directly to providers for a variety of social safety nets safety net programs.
0:41:15
How does the ESS plan to support providers if they lose significant portions of their budgets from the federal resources?
Molly Wasow Park
0:41:21
And as I said before, we are deeply concerned about the threats coming from the federal government.
0:41:26
I talked largely about what is the proposed cuts that will affect the DSS budget and then our directly client entitlement programs, but certainly it affects our not for profit providers as well.
0:41:37
We are in close communication with people.
0:41:40
We are thinking about contingency planning, but the magnitude of the cuts that are being proposed are so large that there's no way we're going to be able to backfill them.
0:41:49
So we are going to have to think about how services are delivered.
Diana Ayala
0:41:52
Are you talking to the providers or Absolutely.
0:41:54
Okay.
0:41:54
Yeah, because I would imagine that communication needs to be that line of communication needs to be open until we have more determined outcome from the federal government.
0:42:03
Okay.
0:42:04
On 02/25/2025, the House of Representatives passed the budget resolution for the federal budget, which will move to the next phase of negotiations between the House and the Senate.
0:42:13
The budget resolution is expected to incorporate massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, food assistance, and other safety net programs that many New Yorkers rely on.
0:42:22
Importantly, 1,910,000,000.00 or 14.4% of HRA's total federal funding is for safety net supports, including food assistance, energy assistance, income support, and Medicaid.
0:42:33
Medicaid.
0:42:34
For DHS, six hundred and twenty eight point one million or 15.5% of its fiscal twenty twenty five budget is made of federal funding with most of it going towards family shelter operations.
0:42:46
You've mentioned that you do have, you know, serious concerns about this.
0:42:50
Giving the the federal threats to the social safety net, what is DSS doing in preparation other than, I guess, you know, speaking with OMB?
0:43:01
Have there been any conversations with the federal government?
Molly Wasow Park
0:43:05
So we're taking really a twofold approach.
0:43:08
One is the contingency planning that I mentioned earlier to think about what we might do in the case of the worst cuts, and the other is really embarking on an education campaign so that we make sure that our elected officials and the general public are aware of how critical that these income supports are and hopefully we can do some work to mitigate the worst of it.
0:43:35
Want people to understand that there are 1,800,000 New Yorkers who rely on SNAP for example.
0:43:41
A third of those are children, a third of those are older adults.
0:43:45
And it's not just the impact on clients.
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Every dollar of SNAP spent in New York City generates $1.54 of economic activity.
0:43:54
So I think one of the things that we had started doing in the context of the Farm Bill reauthorization, the Farm Bill is where SNAP is authorized and we know it's up for renewal.
0:44:05
We'd started in the fall trying to build what we think of as our big tent coalition of people who can advocate for these programs.
0:44:13
It's not just the anti hunger organizations that have been doing this work for a really long time, but housing organizations should care about these entitlement programs because if people are paying more for food, for example, they can't pay for rent.
0:44:27
If a child is hungry, it's very hard for that child to learn.
0:44:31
So we want the education groups involved.
0:44:33
We want the business organizations engaged because of the economic impact of these programs.
0:44:40
So we've been building that coalition.
0:44:42
As I say, it was originally around advocating for SNAP and SNAP growth, but we will pivot that and use it to support the programs instead.
Diana Ayala
0:44:51
Yeah.